private function create_menu_search_index() {

    // bring in the Wordpress framework
    require_once('../wp-load.php');

    // create Wordpress data object

    $menu = self::$menu;

    echo "insert into database...";

    //echo "<pre>";
    //print_r( $menu );

    global $wpdb;

    // first delete all entries in the database that belong to the selected dispensary
    // so we will always run an insert statement
    $delete_sql = "DELETE FROM `menu_search_index` WHERE `dispensary_id` = '" . self::$dispensary_id . "'";
    $wpdb->query($delete_sql);

    echo "show the menu!";

    foreach($menu as $item) {

      $database_insert = array();
      $database_insert['dispensary_id'] = self::$dispensary_id;
      $database_insert['category'] = $item['category'];
      $database_insert['name'] = $item['name'];
      $database_insert['gram'] = $item['prices']['gram'];
      $database_insert['eighth'] = $item['prices']['half'];
      $database_insert['fourth'] = $item['prices']['fourth'];
      $database_insert['half'] = $item['prices']['half'];
      $database_insert['ounce'] = $item['prices']['ounce'];
      $database_insert['each'] = $item['prices']['each'];
      $database_insert['image'] = $item['image'];
      $database_insert['description'] = $item['description'];
      $database_insert['latitude'] = '80.23';
      $database_insert['longitude'] = '24.56';

      //echo "<pre>";
      //print_r( $database_insert );
      //echo "</pre>";

      // create the database insert string based on the data
      $insert_names = array();
      $insert_values = array();

      foreach($database_insert as $key=>$val) {
        $insert_names[] = $key;
        $insert_values[] = $val;
      }

      $insert_names_string = implode($insert_names, ",");
      $insert_values_string = implode($insert_values, ",");

      echo "Insert Names: " . $insert_names_string . "<br/>";
      echo "Insert Values: " . $insert_values_string . "<br/><br/>";



      // echo "Insert Values: " . implode($insert_names, ",");


      // INSERT INTO `menu_search_index` (`dispensary_id`, `category`, `name`, `gram`, `eighth`, `fourth`, `half`, `ounce`, `each`, `image`, `description`) VALUES ('10', 'category', 'name', 'gram', 'eighth', 'fourth', 'half', 'ounce', 'each', 'image', 'description');


      // try this for UTF-8 conversion, might work!
      // html_entity_decode($html->nodeValue, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8')


    }